WELCOME
We amplify silenced voices through creative arts and universal languages.
By listening well, we are remembering how to be human.
Be humanKINDER. Creation, curation, collective liberation.
May 2024: Super happy to be back with The Welcome Tent and a beautiful collaboration in the Alps with young lads from MECS de Passy, a grassroots association offering supported accommodation to unaccompanied migrant youth. We partnered with Chamonix Welcome Collective to facilitate a participatory photography project exhibited in The Welcome Tent at Ascensions Festival in Chamonix. The incredible exhibition was accompanied by a Recipes of HOPE Menu designed and prepared by the young people and served to Festival crew during the four day Festival - including Mafé from East Africa. For all enquiries regarding partnerships, contact emma@humanKINDER.UK.
October 2019: No Rules! Celebrating a global design research prize awarded by the European Academy of Design and Design Indaba for Recipes of HOPE. Read more about Debalina’s application with humanKINDER.
April 2023: It is time to listen to our community of survivors, revolutionaries and dreamers. Click through for an overview of our work to date.
In August 2017, Emma and Sparky, their 6 year old son Felix and Bo the Welsh Border Collie quit their home in the UK to live and work from their van.
Reframing Migration backstory here.
Compelled to act after seeing a window into the future in Calais refugee camp during the winter of 2015, their unique year long journey took them 16,000 miles across Europe.
Travelling with The Welcome Tent - a repurposed army catering tent from 1956 - they prepared, cooked and shared “Recipes of HOPE” with the people they met.
The journey connected them with a community acting with courage and determination to welcome humans facing increasingly authoritarian conditions at Europe’s borders.
“Our purpose was simply to meet people face to face as a family, to hold hands, share recipes, eat together; to use food to create a sense of welcome, peace and belonging; to make memories with new friends by celebrating our shared humanity - nourishment for the belly, the heart and the soul.”
September 2017: Felix, Emma, Sparky and Bo photographed by Guki Giunashuili, Aarhus, Denmark
Emma and Sparky are now weaving together the stories, recipes, hopes and dreams gathered on the journey.
A story of like-minds cooking together to pursue a collective dream.
✌🏽 ❤️ ✊🏽
“Exchanging bread for jewellery with residents of Utopia,
Healing with real remedies, hot baths and chicken broth,
Eating like Kings and Queens out of bins,
Crying with the descendants of victims of Auschwitz,
Sharing poetry with survivors of child trafficking,
Planting seeds with Syrian Revolutionaries,
Cat-walking with Anarchists in Exarcheia,
Experiencing what it is to live, when you are not afraid to die.”
How this story started in Calais
PART 1
August 2015 - August 2017
Chico shares his flat bread Recipe of HOPE, UK, May 2016
The Welcome Tent UK Launch at The Angel Microbrewery, Nottingham, UK, August 2017
Bagzada, Abdulaziz, Omer and Emma from the Happiness All Around crew at The Welcome Tent launch at The Angel Microbrewery, Nottingham, August 2017
In search of “Eutopia”
PART 2
September - December 2017
Felix describing The Welcome Tent journey between October 2017 to January 2018.
The Welcome Tent in collaboration with Den Nye Havn, Aarhus, Denmark, September 2017
The Welcome Tent at Huiskamer, Dutch Design Week, 2017
The Welcome Tent in collaboration with Dutch Design Week and Huiskamer, Eindhoven
A world away
PART 3
January - April 2018
Call to Action by Founder Emma Barrett Palmer
“Ich schätze Menschen, die sich getrauen, über den Tellerrand zu blicken, um so den eigenen Horizont zu erweitern. Ich schätze Menschen, die viel spüren und ihr Herz im richtigen Moment öffnen. Ich schätze Menschen, die ihre eigenen Wege gehen, sich selbst ein Bild machen und sich nicht von außen steuern lassen. Ich schätze Menschen, die Empathie haben. Ich schätze Menschen, die ihren Reichtum nicht in Macht, Geld und anderen materiellen Dingen suchen, sondern in sich ihren Reichtum entdecken. Ich versuche, so zu leben, jedoch nicht, weil es mein Verstand mir vorschreibt oder ich es in der Schule gelernt habe, sondern weil es ein Bedürfnis meines Herzens ist. Und deshalb werde ich immer spüren, wem ich vertrauen kann.
I appreciate people who dare to think outside the box to broaden their horizons. I appreciate people who feel a lot and open their hearts at the right moment. I appreciate people who go their own ways, get a picture of themselves and do not let themselves be controlled from the outside. I appreciate people who have empathy. I appreciate people who do not seek their wealth in power, money and other material things, but discover their wealth in themselves. I try to live that way, but not because my mind dictates to me or I learned it at school, but because it is a need of my heart. And that’s why I always feel who I can trust.”
Beyond imagination
PART 4
May 2018 - September 2018
When the tent became a mountain
PART 5
October 2018 - December 2019
“Lift one foot and put it in front of the other, if you keep moving the road is created by itself”, Muka Founder of MukaCariza sharing her story at Dutch Design Week 2018. Filmed by Dawit Wolde Aregai of Queen Production
Our work is a journey which requires patience and perseverance over time. We make the most of our precious moments together.
Why we have chosen HOPE, a discussion with @yalinidream and @bitter_melanin